


the magnus archives - miscellaneous files

by hells_intern



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Horror, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Major Original Character(s), Minor Character Death, Minor Original Character(s), Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24209107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hells_intern/pseuds/hells_intern
Summary: Statement of Lovise Addens, regarding grief. Original statement given 13th March, 2014. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.---a collection of statements regarding avatar concepts I enjoy
Comments: 9
Kudos: 15





	1. Sonder - Case # 0141303

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer that im incredibly american and writing english characters so theres bound to be inaccuracies about british culture

**ARCHIVIST**

Statement of Lovise Addens, regarding grief. Original statement given 13th March, 2014. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

**ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)**

I guess I want to start this with an apology. I dunno, I’ve never really been good at writing things down. Especially when it came to sharing… personal information. I know that must sound absurd to whoever’s reading this. That’s pretty much every story you have here, isn’t it? Personal recollections? That’s how the person who recommended this place to me phrased it as anyways. A place to just get this all off my chest and maybe stop whatever is happening while I’m at it. And I really do want to share this, especially if this is gonna be able to help me get away. But even then, there’s still that part of me that kind of wants to keep it to myself rather than share it.

And I’m also sorry if anyone here dies soon.

Anyways.

I… I’ve always known death was something natural. That everyone faces it, there’s nothing you can do to stop it so you just enjoy the good times, remember them in a good light, etc., etc.. I guess, in a way, it all sort of just… went over my head. It’s just that you never really  _ truly _ realize how permanent death is until it finally strikes close to home. Like how it feels being told that’s just how something works over and over like when you’re a kid again without explanation and don’t understand why your parents aren’t as excited as you are to wake up at 1 am on a Christmas morning to open presents and be the ones to clean up the wrapping paper from the living room floor because you’re already distracted with the new toy you got until you’re grown and your little sister’s doing the same thing to you and you realize just how  _ aggravating _ it feels.

Or maybe that’s just me. And maybe that was a bad analogy.

Growing up, my family had always been pretty closed off to the rest of our relatives. It wasn’t that there was bad blood or anything dramatic like that between either of my parents and their sides of the family. It was just that once my parents had the opportunity to leave the little town they’d spent their whole lives in as childhood sweethearts— well, it didn’t take them a long conversation to make their decision. As my parents became more and more busy as they got better promotions from their jobs, visits became harder to plan with relatives who also had their own lives to live outside of us. We’d still all meet for the holidays, though. A four hour trip back to St Davids from Birmingham wasn’t the end of the world or anything for my parents. And once I moved out to my own flat in London, I just fell into the habit of traveling back again for the holidays. Outside of that, I didn’t talk to or visit my relatives.

Only my grandma.

So when she finally died from old age, I… it was like the concept of death had suddenly actually shot into existence right then and there when I got the phone call instead of whatever not-quite reality it’d been in before. It was a numbing sensation when it all really, finally sunk in. That shove back to a reality you can never unknow or unfeel. I remember me and my dad having a cry together over the phone. A few days later I got the details for her funeral in an email.

I’d been to funerals before but they’d always been relatives I either could barely remember or didn’t even know were related to me before my parents broke the news to me. It always felt so surreal before, attending those funerals when everyone else was properly mourning for someone you were too young to remember and too young to know how you should be acting.

At Nan’s funeral though, it was like I could finally understand something that I thought I already knew. But I really didn’t know until then. I think that was the worst part of it all, being sucker-punched by something you thought you already knew how to handle. But I didn’t know how to handle it. It was painful, the burning hole in my chest that was a cold void and hurt with every breathless inhale and exhale I managed to take sitting in some dusty old church. Everything felt too much, like I was going to suffocate there from both the grief and just the existence of  _ everything _ pressing down on me as my throat burned from every emotion I didn’t know I could experience this intensely _. _ Most of that day passed by in a haze for me. Having all of these demanding emotions squeezing my heart kind of made it hard to focus on anything that wasn’t trying to breathe. Hell, I can’t even remember the address or the name of the church the ceremony happened in. I can’t even remember the eulogy my uncle gave.

I just remember staring out at the rows and rows of familiar and unfamiliar faces going through their own stages of grief and their tears flowing freely, wondering how anyone could even manage to accept this stupid weight, much less let it out without drowning, and then… staring at my grandma’s face.

They’d given her an open casket funeral to say our goodbyes but looking down at her just felt  _ wrong. _ Nan’s eyes were closed with her arms clutching a bouquet of lilies to her chest. She had on the woven purple dress she told me so many stories about, one of her favorites from around when she had my mum and uncle. Even after sixty years, the free flowing dress still fit her comfortably. The rings she wore everyday were still there on her fingers, rings given by her friends I’d met during my own trips to her place and were there at the funeral behind me, her wedding ring from grandpa, her necklace my mum bought her during a vacation, and it just was too much. It was too much like she was just sleeping on the couch again because she was too stubborn to get up and walk down the hall to her bedroom when there was still more to listen to on the tv, except she wasn’t waking up and she would never wake up again. I wasn’t going to see her open her eyes, sit up, and smile at me no matter how much I wished for it.

Her skin was just off enough in shade to feel wrong looking at her. The makeup or whatever they used to make her look less— there was the unbearable smell of cosmetics covering the underlying scent of something chemical and headache-inducing that burned my nose and throat inhaling— It wasn’t my Nan. All of who she used to be was no longer there. This lifeless figure who made a caricature out of someone who used to be full of life  _ wasn’t her. _ I felt something rise inside me that I can’t quite explain, the full force of emotions threatening to burst out, the overwhelming presence of everyone standing there behind me waiting pressing against my back, and I had to turn away back to the pews as fast as I could. 

The rest of my family was just gathered in small clusters, talking in quiet voices. I couldn’t bring myself to join any of them. Even the one with my mum, dad, and sister comforting each other. I just… wanted to be alone. That didn’t stop relatives coming up to me and trying to pull me into their mourning together as I sat in the pews. Eventually I ended up moving to one of the white clothed tables pushed towards the side of the church, looking through the funeral regiersty just to seem busy. Just to get away from everyone. I knew they meant well, but I didn’t think I could’ve really handled… anything in that moment. All of who I was had been pulled into the suffocating orbit of that void inside me and I just wanted to be alone. Thankfully they all skirted around me once they saw the registry in my hands and assumed I was busy. 

Or maybe they could just see that I really couldn’t talk to anyone then. I don’t know. At the time, I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to think about anything really. I just mindlessly flipped through the signatures.

It all felt like a horrible dream that was at the same time too vivid and too distant. I… I was really out of it, trying to feel everything and nothing. Maybe that’s what got his attention.

He was dressed in a full black outfit like the other people who’d arrived with the man Dad introduced as the funeral director and he just was suddenly there beside me the next moment. He must’ve walked up while I was distracted with… everything.

I want to say that there was something terrifying about him when I first looked at him but he was simply completely, utterly normal. He was only a few inches taller than me, arms politely clasped behind his back, and did seem younger than what I’d expect from a funeral assistant though I think that could be said for all the funeral employees there. There were dark marks under his eyes but I didn’t really think much of it. I wouldn’t think working with corpses exactly leaves you with the most peaceful dreams. The only thing that really struck me as strange with the white lily boutonnière pinned over his heart and his smile. I guess I should’ve been more angry at the time but I was starting to come down from whatever emotional haze I’d been in and was just feeling.. Drained. So I just stared.

His smile only grew.

He told me that it must be strange, seeing a body like that for the first time. I responded that this wasn’t the first funeral I’ve been to and he just shook his head.

“No,” he said, “really seeing the body. For how it is.”

I’d be lying if I said I understood what he meant, even now. And I told him that much. It was.. Uncomfortable to look him in the eyes. They were dark and hazy, like there was a thin layer of smoke between the two of us. Like a dream you can’t quite remember clearly.

He never stopped smiling.

“Death never stops, does it? In each moment we get closer to an ending we aren’t aware of, and one that wouldn’t discriminate about who you are.”

His voice was soft but easy to hear over the even softer mournful murmurs between grieving family and friends, and easy to hear over the quiet music playing around us to fill that silent void that would be empty with anything else. Despite the open space around the two of us, I felt frozen to that spot as he spoke.

“Don’t you ever think about it? How soon will that be you laid there as people make-believe you’re even a little bit more alive in the moments they remember you? But we’d be long gone by then, wouldn’t we? It all ends the moment you do.”

He hadn’t made any move towards me but it felt like he was closer the more he spoke. A quiet dread filled me the more and more he spoke, something curling in on itself inside my chest. Despite what he said, there was an admiration to his words that made them feel so much worse than they would’ve been if they were instead sharp, barbed things. Because if he had been harsh, I could’ve lost myself to that incredulous anger of some  _ stranger _ coming up from out of the blue, in the middle of a funeral, had the nerve to come and say all of this unprompted. And I wouldn’t have paid attention to anything he said. 

Maybe that would have been for the better if I had been angry anyways.

Instead that praising breezy undertone made it impossible to ignore everything he told me. I felt stuck in a morbid curiosity and sucked down even further each second. His smile seemed even wider, like he found something he was looking for as he stared me down. I felt something close around my heart, trapping both those demanding emotions, and fear, and myself there. My throat was closing with the urge to cry as I started to feel lightheaded.

Finally he moved for the first time. To be honest, that startled me more than what he said next. He just leaned towards me and whispered, “The moment you die, will feel exactly like this one.”

I didn’t go to the procession after that. No one stopped me as I walked out of that dusty old church the moment I realized he had gone and no one called me the following days. I think they all assumed the grief of finally losing a loved one had got to me. That’s what I assumed too at the moment. I didn’t see that man among any of those clusters of grieving family, and trust me, I did look the moment he wasn’t there next to me. He wasn’t there among the funeral employees that had come to help, either.

I couldn’t take being there any longer, stuck in the old church with my Nan behind me wearing that too heavy makeup caked onto her face and the fake blush to give that false impression that maybe she was only sleeping. And that perfume covering the scent of her embalming. 

So I just got into my car and drove the four hours back home.

It becomes harder to really tell this story from there. There were just small things at first, little events I didn’t think would have, well, any connection. Just maybe running out of gas one day when I thought I already refueled, losing things I put in the same spot everyday. They weren't things that'd happen and I'd know it was him. How could I?

And then the crash happened. It was only two months after the funeral had happened. My parents were... still sorting through the rest of Nan's belongings and had some that they wanted to keep packed into boxes already. But they were both busy people and since my sister was busy with uni, I was the first one they called to ask for help moving them. Which meant I had to make the four hour drive to St Davids. To an empty home that has all those memories still of someone who wasn't going to come back.

I didn't want to go. There was still that dreadful grief hanging over my head every day that made it hard to think of Nan too long before I had to do anything else to occupy myself. And that quiet lingering fear that maybe if I went back, that man would be there again. With his unwavering smile that choked me in my grief. He had to have been from a funeral parlor nearby.

But I was one of the only people with a key to both my parents' and Nan's. One of both the drawbacks and benefits of not being visited by relatives often was that there weren't many who had a key to your house. So I swallowed my feelings to avoid causing an argument during a time we’d last needed one, got into my car, and drove once I was off work.

I… I still don’t know still if it happened because of him. If he’s behind all of these or if he only shows up afterwards to revel in my misery. Maybe he knows they’re going to happen before anyone else does and just waits. And watches it happen. I can’t, no matter how hard I try, remember him in those moments before the crash happened. 

Someone ran a red light. Was it because of him? Or did they not see me go my turn through the crossroads? That could’ve certainly been a possibility. The road wasn’t a more modern paved one by any means and the state of the trees and shrubs covering the corners made it seem neglected. They could’ve not seen me going. I’m certain they didn’t see the car driving next to me.

They couldn’t have. They couldn’t have seen the smaller car on the right of mine as they came speeding from the left. And that car couldn’t have seen them. 

Was it my fault? It feels like it must be, sitting here writing this all down full of dread but alive when someone else is dead and in the ground. I hit the brakes fast enough to escape with just a sore neck and scrapes on my car. They weren’t so lucky.

It was a horrible sound. I… I don’t think it’s something I can ever forget hearing. And when I looked at that car beside me, I knew they were dead. I knew they were dead. The speeding driver was more fortunate than them but he looked just as dazed as I was.

Something about the death of a perfect stranger in front of you… makes you realize that their life could’ve been a lot like yours. Or a lot different. They had their hobbies, their likes and dislikes, family and friends and acquaintances that didn’t know that was the last they would see of this stranger that was a sibling to them. And others who wouldn’t realize how much  _ there _ that person’s presence was until they were gone forever.

It was a sudden, stark clear awareness that made everything suddenly feel still. I couldn’t feel my body but I could see my hands trembling, tight on the steering wheel. A complete, complex presence that could never be fully replicated was gone. And the only that had stopped it from being me was a matter of perspective and timing.

That was when I saw him for the first time outside that church. He stood out further down the road, maybe 50 yards at least, in his black clothing amongst the bright green foliage. He… was like an absence of all light where he stood, despite it being a perfectly sunny day. His face wasn’t visible from where I was yet with a cold creeping sense of terror crawling up the back of my neck, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was still smiling. Wonder if he was staring directly at me as I was to him. And then he took a step forward. 

I can’t help but feel guilty for leaving the driver with that… body. When that man moved towards me though, it was already too much to imagine hearing his voice again. So I drove away. It feels pathetic now. A nameless man only acknowledges me twice and still, both times I can’t help running away. Is that sad to admit?

No one came knocking on my door afterwards. I never really kept religiously to the news but in those following days, I still avoided looking at broadcasts and sites on the off chance they decided to report on an otherwise uneventful crash. I didn’t tell my family. How could I? They had so many other things to worry and fret over, that I didn’t want to add something that could easily be brushed off as paranoia and grief getting to me. And at the time, I really thought it was.

My misfortune escalated much more after that. It wasn’t often a week could go by without at least one accident with a fatal ending that only managed to miss me by a single second. A single inch. Did it miss me? Did _ he _ miss? I can’t tell. How do I know I was the target of each and every accident and not just the chosen, captive audience? Is it ego that makes me believe that I am the one and only victim to it all? It was horrifying, knowing each of those people that managed to be unfortunate enough to catch my death was just as living as I was before. They all had their own lives and they were all wiped away just as easily as someone squishes a fly. So what made me different enough to be their audience each time?

I knew then that it was because of him. He didn’t try to hide. After each accident, each death, I would see him standing there with that damned smile watching me closer and closer. And soon after I noticed him, he would take a step towards me.

Death doesn’t stop being horrible. Fear doesn’t stop happening. But after witnessing so many ends, I’ll admit I developed a sense of detached curiosity. Sometimes when I felt too numb, I’d just stand there and watch him. He’d just keep walking. Always at the same pace too. I, ah, timed it actually once. Never fast and never slower than about two seconds between each step. Always with that smile too. In the end, my nerves would always get the best of me though. The longest I managed to last was maybe five steps before I found myself running away again.

He’s always there. I can’t get rid of him. I don’t know how I’d even try. I got the name and address of the funeral company that attended Nan’s funeral but asking them about him only got me blank looks or dead ends. How do you get rid of someone you can’t find? What do I do if he isn’t even real?

I don’t know if it’s the stress or  _ what, _ but now I swear I see him sometimes on the days where nothing happens. My bedroom is part of the front of the house. Which means that one of my walls is essentially just a bunch of tall windows. I don’t know if I’m only imagining it during the long nights where it sounds like someone tapping on those windows under the sound of my fan. The whispering. The laughing. I can’t get the courage to open my door and check.

I don’t imagine there’s anything your institute can actually do for me and my… situation. You can’t stop him. I don’t think anyone can. He is… inevitable. I just want this to finally be written down somewhere.

I’m not going to last long.

He got close enough to grab my hand. It still burns, where his skin brushed mine. I don’t know how but my health’s started to fail me. I suppose you expect that much with the few blood specks on these papers. Sorry about that. I still can’t figure out how to stop the coughing.

I wonder if this is how Nan felt? It isn’t a pleasant feeling, watching yourself fade away like this. Everything is hard to imagine doing and harder still to do it. 

I’m glad I could at least manage to write this statement down.

I want someone to remember me after this. Anyone. 

**ARCHIVIST**

Statement ends. 

[ _ shaky sigh _ ] During Ms. Addens’s visit to the Institute, there was indeed a fatal incident involving one of the archival assistants at the time when she was leaving. He happened to run into her and as he helped her out of the building, there was a… [ _ cautiously _ ] situation involving a motorcyclist. 

Looking into the events Ms. Addens’s reported, Martin was able to find a police report from roughly around the time she mentioned with the account of one Adam Jefferson. In the account, he talks about a woman who’s  _ brief _ description matches Ms. Addens’s. This woman had sped off soon after the crash, similar to what the statement mentions. 

He was also able to get a hold of Ms. Addens’s medical files. Looking through the copy attached to this statement, she did visit multiple doctor offices from late January to early March before her statement was given. Despite the various symptoms Ms. Addens reported - fatigue, nausea, a development of chronic pain originating from her left hand - a conclusive agreement to her exact condition hadn’t been made. It does not help matters that apparently no attempted solutions by her doctors worked either. 

Her family only has a genetic history of diabetes so that, again, is a dead end.

… [ _ contemplative sigh _ ] This is the End’s work, right? There’s traces of possible others within her statement but it overall has a dread for an inevitable conclusion.

Lovise Addens went missing. Though I can’t imagine much about what the fear of death would want with someone hopefully already gone, it couldn’t be for anything good-

**MAN**

[ _ pleasantly from beside him _ ] You’ve finally gotten to her case, then?

**ARCHIVIST**

[ _ indignant terror _ ] FUCKING-

[ _ CLICK _ ]


	2. Inevitable - Case #0200805

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of Tam Samuels regarding The End. Statement taken direct from subject.

[ _ CLICK _ ]

**ARCHIVIST**

[ _ sounds of fumbling with the recorder _ ] Y-you- how did you get in here?

**MAN**

[ _ amused and calm _ ] You don’t have a lock, sir. It’s rather easy to walk in when there’s nothing to stop you. 

**ARCHIVIST**

…. You’re.. the man from the statement. Aren’t you?

**MAN**

Oh, yes, yes. I’d be a bit disappointed if you didn’t get that to be frank. That is your thing, after all, isn’t it?

**ARCHIVIST**

[ _ barely audible mumble along the lines of ‘My thing-?’, before being talked over _ ]

**MAN**

I’ve been waiting for this honestly. For you to get to her case, that is. You always have so many  _ questions. _ I don’t see the harm in answering a few.

[ _ There’s a pause filled with a thick silence before he speaks again. _ ]

Oh my. Does the Archivist not have questions for once? That’s certainly a surprise.

**ARCHIVIST**

This- [ _ clears throat _ ] This isn’t… how I’m used to it going. I- Are you here to kill me?

**TAM**

My… using your first question on only that. No, I’m not here to kill you, Archivist. I’d say you’re safe but- well, life finds a way. [ _ laugh _ ] You’ll be there eventually.

**ARCHIVIST**

.... Right. So you came here for what? [ _ tired _ ] An interview?

**MAN**

[ _ agreebily _ ] That’s what your institution is for.

**ARCHIVIST**

[ _ deep sigh and sound of him taking time to accept his situation _ ] So. You’ve killed Ms. Addens. Or rather, did you take her? [ _ static _ ]

**MAN**

I took her body, yes. [ _ chuckle _ ] There’s more to my business than just reviewing death, Mr. Sims. [ _ The Archivist tries to ask something before being talked over _ ] I’ve given her a rather lovely rest if I must say so. A beautiful bed with white lilies covering the top. If she was awake, I’m sure she’d appreciate their beauty, too. For now, however, the both of us will just have to wait.

**ARCHIVIST**

[ _ waits until he realizes that the man is done _ ] … Wait for.. what?

**MAN**

[ _ dreamily _ ] Whatever happens to her. There’s so many possibilities… I enjoy preparing a nice rest for my guests in the meantime. There’s not much to do with them otherwise. [ _ chuckles _ ]

**ARCHIVIST**

Your guests- those in the funeral parlor? The one in St Davids?

**MAN**

No, no. I’ve never been there personally. I’m sure it’s lovely there.

**ARCHIVIST**

But the statement says you were at th-the funeral, how else-?

**MAN**

[ _ overlapping, pointed but amused _ ] It’s rather  _ easy _ to walk in when there’s  _ nothing _ to stop you. 

**ARCHIVIST**

I… see. [ _ uncomfortable throat clearing _ ] I-

**MAN**

Do you want a statement, Archivist?

**ARCHIVIST**

… [ _ disbelief _ ] A statement.

**MAN**

You’ve already begun recording. It’d be a waste not to.

**ARCHIVIST**

[ _ hesitantly _ ] That… I didn’t do that.

**MAN**

Oh yes, I’m sure you didn’t. Let’s begin.

**ARCHIVIST**

[ _ dissociating as he speaks _ ] Statement of- wh-who-?

**MAN**

[ _overlapping, an amused calm_ ] Tam Samuel. Regarding The End.

**ARCHIVIST**

… Statement recorded direct from subject, 8th of May, 2020.

Statement begins.

**TAM**

Death- well, it’s inevitable. You know that.  _ I _ know that. It’s always been here since the beginning of things and- [ _ laugh _ ] -and I’m sure it will be there at the  _ end _ , too.

I don’t mind. 

Who could imagine a world without it? Who would  _ want  _ to? There’s already so many stories of why we shouldn’t. Just thoughts and dreams, of course, but there’s still truth in them. I don’t think humans can make something without a trace of it. A trace of themself.

A trace of their fears.

I don’t believe that It can fear. It isn’t human, after all, and fear is something so wonderfully, beautifully human. 

[ _ pauses for a moment _ ] Or animal. You’d know about it. I don’t need to explain that.

But It does _ love _ . 

It loves all of us, after all.

**ARCHIVIST**

[ _ hesitantly _ ] Loves?

**TAM**

The closest It can to love. How we think of love. We are precious to It. To Its appetite. 

It loves us because we have made It a world so perfectly tuned to its intentions, a world It does not want to change because we are already beautiful to Its hunger. A world where everything will one day stop sooner or later. A world where everything has a journey but no matter where that journey takes you, you will reach a conclusion.

And even then, in the precious moments before your last, you are loved. You are loved because you are a thousand worlds of things you cannot see, of bacteria and bugs and viruses and cells and atoms and molecules. You are thousands of worlds that you know and that you do not know because we cannot ever reach the same level It is on but it does not matter because It knows and It loves us for that. It loves us for being a thousand worlds beginning. A thousand worlds ending. With each inhale we create life and with each exhale we kill them in one stroke. Hundreds of creatures die from us, on us, in us everyday and we do not bat an eye. And though these deaths are not enough to sate Its everlasting hunger, we are enough for It to love us. 

And It loves me most of all.

It loves me like a wild animal that the child feeds behind their parents' backs. It loves me the only way It can. The only way something inhuman can love. It loves me because It sees my face and knows that I will feed It, that I will do all I can to lure in prey that will be enough to satisfy It for the moment and that I will go off once more to search once the hunger returns again as it always does. It loves me because to It, I am a provider. I am one of many. I welcome It with open arms and I know that the wild thing It is could kill me just as easily as I kill the hundreds of cells living and festering inside me and I love It for that. 

Death is something beautiful. Something cherished.

I am one of the few who walk willing into Its open jaws but I am part of Its herd nonetheless.

And I will love It as It loves me.

Isn’t it a beautiful thing, to be loved? I think It is.

What is better than being loved by something that is always with you? Nothing here is outside of It’s reach and so there is nothing you or I could ever try to be free from It. Not that it’d do you any good after all. A life forever is one you grow bored of eventually.

Trust me.

I long for the day when I’m done, the day where once all my work is over and I can join It… It will take me in as I’ve accepted It.

There isn’t a way to guess when that day will come. Nothing separates this moment from the last. 

I wonder if our lifetimes are experienced just as long for It… or if this is just another moment, another blink. I wonder if we are the same to what lives because of us.

[ _ soft pleasant sigh _ ] And I hope that when you die, Archivist, I am one of many who is there to witness.

**ARCHIVIST**

[ _ terrified confusion over the sound of someone’s chair being pushed back _ ] I-I… I…

**TAM**

Well? Isn’t a handshake the way to end this? There isn’t much else to say for your little archives.

**ARCHIVIST**

[ _ another chair being pushed back as the Archivist’s voice becomes more distant, shaky _ ] Your han- the statement, she said-

**TAM**

It’s only good manners to. If there was anything I wanted to do to you, wouldn’t I have already?

**ARCHIVIST**

[ _ tense silence before the sound of the Archivist moving closer. Almost immediately there’s a choked gasp of pain _ ] 

**TAM**

[ _ dreamily, overlapping _ ] No, I wouldn’t have. It is more polite to wait. You’ll see me, Archivist.

**ARCHIVIST**

[ _ the sounds of the Archivist in pain before fumbling near the recorder. Eventually he manages to grab it with a pained inhale _ ]

Sta- [ _ hoarse cough _ ] statement ends-

[ _ CLICK _ ]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the long wait on this one! i had the vague concept in mind and the monologue written, but i wasnt able to settle on a beginning or exact end. i did my best to fill it out based on how i thought the characters would act, though i still wish i was able to make it as long as the last chapter. i hope yall still enjoyed :>
> 
> quick note that ive also put this work on wattpad so if you see it there, it really is me and not someone reposting it


End file.
